Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel
A bold and resonant reimagining of history and place. In Empty Spaces, Jordan Abel moves beyond character and dialogue to center the land itself as witness — knowing all that has happened and all that is yet to come. The work dec enters human perception and invites readers to step outside Western ways of seeing, offering a profound meditation on memory, presence, and uncertainty.
A quiet, powerful book that asks us to listen differently.
- Dimensions: 6.4 × 0.9 × 8.4 in
- Weight: 12.8 oz
- Published by: W. W. Norton
Praise
“A singular, incantatory work, one that reimagines James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novelThe Last of the Mohicans. . . . Told from the perspective of a contemporary city-dwelling Nisga’a person, the book feels as though forest itself is speaking, sky itself, river itself.”
“Empty Spaces is nearly without precedent—its scale is reminiscent of Gertrude Stein’sThe Making of Americans; its conceptual sophistication reminds me of M. Nourbe Se Philip’s Zong!; its critique of settler colonialism is as intellectually rigorous as Aileen Moreton-Robinson’sThe White Possessive. It is hard to think of a more original work.”
“I did not want to leaveEmpty Spaces. I saw and heard things I haven’t before: the breath of rocks, bodies open like lakes, broken air, shore and shrub and softness, the outline and humidity of life in every bend. This is a spiritually tectonic book—it will restore life inside you.”